Interference Range Analysis and Scheduling among Three-Hop Neighborhood in Maritime WiMAX Mesh Networks

There is a lack of high-speed and low-cost wireless network at sea to meet the increasing need of maritime users. With this observation, we have envisaged a WiMAX mesh network for high-speed ship- to-ship/shore communications. Analysis of interference range in such maritime WiMAX mesh networks is presented in this paper. And based on the findings, scheduling transmission of MAC control messages and data packets within three-hop neighborhood is investigated for the purpose of minimizing interference. A model is developed for analysis of the interference range in maritime environment. With parameter values that are derived from measurements at sea, we show that by scheduling among three-hop neighborhood the probability a transmission being interfered by a concurrent transmission drops about 30%. Simulation results show that, with the simulation settings in this paper, by scheduling among three-hop neighborhood, the initial packet delay and the average packet delay can be reduced by about 17% and 15.6% in sea state 3.0, respectively. In sea state 6.0, the performance improvement in initial packet delay and average packet delay are about 45% and 19.3%, respectively.